New guide gives practical ideas to combat climate change

Students from St. Francis of Assisi School in Triangle rake leaves as part of a clean-up effort last year. St. Francis of Assisi Parish was certified as a “GreenFaith Sanctuary” in 2014 and is featured in a new guide to help Catholic parishes combat climate change.

The eco-parish guide was created by the Global Catholic Climate Movement, a worldwide network composed of laypeople, priests, religious and bishops. The GCCM is united by “the moral imperative of responding to and raising awareness about climate change.”

In his encyclical "Laudato Si,' on Care for Our Common
Home," Pope Francis does not mince words: "Living our
vocation to be protectors of God's handiwork is essential to
a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect
of our Christian experience."

But what does living that vocation look like for Catholics
and how can the faithful go beyond simply recycling bottles
and newspapers at home and turning off lights?

A new guide draws from more than a dozen countries and
cultures to offer practical ways to care for creation and
respond to the pope's call to action. The "Eco-Parish Guide:
Bringing Laudato Si' to Life" is a tool for pastors, staff,
pastoral councils and parishioners to combat climate change -
what Pope Francis refers to as "one of the principal
challenges facing humanity in our day."

Divided into three main sections, the guide includes
initiatives that can help parishes reduce emissions,
suggestions for how they can inspire and engage parishioners
about environmental issues, and ways to practice solidarity
and advocacy that serve the neediest and build up the common
good. It encourages parishes to form a Care for Creation
Team, which spearheads projects with approval from the
pastor; provides recommended resources; and contains a
climate-action idea checklist. It also has a section on
benchmarking - comparing energy performance of a church to
buildings of comparable size and location - and
certification.

Among the Catholic communities featured in the 45-page guide
is St. Francis of Assisi Church in Triangle, one of three
parishes highlighted in North America. St. Francis is noted
for its certification through New Jersey-based GreenFaith, a
national interfaith environmental coalition. The parish and
school established nontoxic maintenance and cleaning
practices; reduced energy, paper and water use; and became a
National Wildlife Federation certified wildlife habitat. They
also incorporated Catholic social teaching on the environment
into parish celebrations and engaged and informed
parishioners on environmental justice.

While the certification process was ambitious, "every parish
can do something to help the environment," said Secular
Franciscan Rob Goraieb, coordinator of Franciscan Action and
Advocacy at St. Francis of Assisi. "It's about taking
incremental steps; you do what you can," he said.

Goraieb said he hopes his parish's certification and other
examples in the guide will "bring the big march for climate
change into the pews - making it practical and tangible so
that it grows into an effort of the heart, not the fist."
Real change will occur he said, not through a "fight for
climate change" but by transforming behavior informed by
faith. "Our foundation has to be the Gospel," he said. "We
must operate out of that."

The eco-parish guide was created by the Global Catholic
Climate Movement, a worldwide network of more than 300
Catholic organizations. Composed of laypeople, priests,
religious, bishops and others, the GCCM is united by "the
moral imperative of responding to and raising awareness about
climate change," according to the eco-parish guide.

Lead author of the guide was Gail Kendall, a Massachusetts
Institute of Technology-trained engineer with decades of
experience in climate change work across the globe. Kendall
said that with more than 220,000 Catholic parishes around the
world, the church can play an integral role in reducing
greenhouse gas emissions.

To be useful to parishes worldwide, the guide reflects the
diversity of parishes in the Catholic Church, said Kendall.

One parish featured in the guide is St. Peter's Church in
Bandra, a suburb of Mumbai, India. Parishioners installed
nearly 200 solar panels on the church terrace to power parish
buildings.

The guide points out that many efforts to combat climate
change can be implemented easily and for free. And some
initiatives can save parishes as much as 20-30 percent in
energy costs, according to the guide. More importantly, the
document shows how climate change is directly related to
poverty and other social justice issues, said Kendall. In
"Laudato Si,'" the pope writes that "our relationship
with nature is inseparable from fraternity, justice and
faithfulness to others."

Understanding such interconnectedness is part of the charism
of the Franciscan order and thus interwoven into the spirit
of St. Francis of Assisi Church, said Franciscan Father John
F. O'Connor, temporary administrator of the parish.

"Very much part of what it means for all of us to be
disciples of Jesus is to understand that we are responsible
for cherishing, protecting and celebrating creation," Father
O'Connor said.

"The average person goes through life not thinking much about
creation - maybe just thinking how nice the trees or the
birds are," he said. "But if we're not careful with the
beauty of the world around us, we could lose it."

Get the guide

To download the free "Eco-Parish Guide: Bringing Laudato Si'
to Life," go here. For more
information on the Global Catholic Climate Movement, go to catholicclimatemovement.global.